I Thought Love Meant Staying, Until She Taught Me Otherwise

Terence's POV

“Remember, I will not allow anything to happen to Jeremy!”

That was the last thing I heard before everything went dark.

Then, I had a long, long dream.

In it, I went back to the day I first met Queenie. It was during our university’s welcome party, and she fell for me at first sight. To win me over, the proud and temperamental heiress wrote me 999 love letters, chasing me patiently through our entire college life.

Eventually, I gave in. She threw herself into my arms like an excited little girl and cried with joy.

Two years later, her career skyrocketed. On the day her company went public, she dropped to one knee with a massive diamond ring already prepared. She looked up at me and said, “Terence, marry me. You’re my whole world. I swear I’ll never let you down in this lifetime.”

When my mother found out, she didn’t approve. She even warned me, “Women in that world are never to be trusted.”

But I didn’t listen. We fought bitterly, and I even made a bet with her that Queenie was different.

And for a while, it seemed I was right.

After we got married, she treated me well. She never came home late, never let me suffer even the slightest injury.

Until the night she was drugged and ended up sleeping with a so-called “pure” college boy.

And that boy was Jeremy.

The next morning, I saw the same burning passion she once had for me, now directed at someone else.

Still, I couldn’t let go. I refused to believe the woman who once loved me so deeply was truly gone. I couldn’t accept that I’d lost to her world and its cruel rules.

So I didn’t bring up divorce. I held on, trying desperately to save our crumbling marriage.

But the moment she hung my mother still on a ventilator from an excavator, that was when I finally realized I had lost completely and brutally.

With that, the dream ended.

I jolted awake with the image of the heart monitor’s flatline still burned into my brain.

Ripping out the IV needle in my arm, I staggered out of the hospital bed and ran straight for the morgue.

But after searching every cold storage locker, I couldn’t find my mother’s body.

Panic surged through me.

Then I heard two nurses coming out of the room next door, retching over a trash can.

“That was disgusting,” one gagged. “He looked so polite and well-groomed. Who knew he was into that?”

“Right?” the other said. “I don’t even know what kind of fetish that is. Said he wanted to understand the human body, and used a sixty-something-year-old woman for the experiment. The body was already stiff and he still cut into it. Ugh!”

My blood ran cold upon hearing that horrible conversation. Then I rushed over and grabbed one of the nurses with trembling hands.

“What… what did you just say?” I asked, my voice shaking. “What sixty-year-old woman? What do you mean?!”

Startled, the nurse stammered, “There… there was an old woman who passed away yesterday. We couldn’t reach any relatives, so she was placed in the morgue. But then, the hospital director’s boyfriend had just had a kidney transplant and said he wanted to learn more about the surgery, so he…he dissected the body.”

I didn’t hear the rest. My ears buzzed, and my veins froze. My stomach turned inside out.

I shoved past them and bolted into the next room like a madman.

There, lying on the operating table was my mother.

Her body was unrecognizable, mangled, and dissected. Not a single organ was intact.

My knees gave out at the scene.

I collapsed beside her, shaking violently, unable to even form a coherent sentence.

Then Jeremy walked in, smug and proud, as if this were something to celebrate.

At that instant, I saw red.

I lunged at him, grabbed him by the throat, and squeezed with everything I had.

“You touched my mother’s body?!” I screamed. “I’ll make you pay for that with your damn life!!”

His eyes rolled back as he struggled, clawing at my hands for air.

I reached for the surgical knife nearby and aimed straight for his heart.

But just before I could strike, someone kicked me hard from the side.

My head hit the floor with a crack, and the wounds on my body tore open again, blood seeping out like I’d been ripped apart.